Sans Émission

Volkswagen turns four hours of dead airtime into showtime.

Client: Volkswagen
Office: Canada Montreal

In a first-of-its-kind media activation, we transformed a popular TV station’s unused overnight airtime into a four-hour-long comedy special starring improv comedian Pier-Luc Funk and an all-electric Volkswagen ID.4.

With more automotive brands advertising their respective electric vehicles in Quebec (Canada’s largest EV market by volume), standing apart from the increasing category noise has become more difficult. Volkswagen is a smaller brand in Canada, without the marketing budgets to compete on share-of-voice alone.

In Quebec, many TV networks stop broadcasting overnight. One of these networks, popular entertainment channel Noovo, has never broadcasted anything between the hours of 2 am to 6 am in its history.

Locals call this off-air time “Sans Émission,” which translates to “no broadcast signal.” But “Sans Émission” also has a second meaning: “no gas emissions,” in reference to electric vehicles.

Playing with the double meaning of “Sans Émission,” we partnered with Noovo to turn their unused airtime into a first-of-its-kind media stunt, a four-hour-long comedy special starring comedian Pier-Luc Funk and a Volkswagen EV.

The overnight broadcast saw over 63,000 people tune in between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. Based on total viewers, this put Sans Émission in the top 6 most-watched live shows on Noovo. Notably, every other show in Noovo’s top 10 most-watched list aired during primetime.

This exposure translated into significant increases across Volkswagen’s marketing funnel:
• +15% awareness of Volkswagen as an EV brand†
• +40% familiarity of the all-electric ID.4†
• +54% consideration (94% would now consider buying an ID.4)†
• +100% purchase intent†

The campaign delivered strong business results:
• +64% in ID.4 web-order-form engagements on Volkswagen’s website following the live broadcast˚
• +49% growth in Volkswagen’s share of the Quebec EV market